Forum Discussion
Optimization Rules/help
Hi everyone,
I hope to give as much as content/problem I can.
I am tring to get a optimization report for packing department in my company. There are certain rules which needs to be fulfilled to get the best possible way to pack the ordered items into the frames and then into the trucks. Here is an example.
A company have ordered 30 items to be shipped. The total weight of the order is 15200lbs. The breakdown of the orders is as follows.
10 items of 7000 lbs, each 700lbs
12 items of 6000lbs, each 500lbs
2 items of 400lbs, each 200lbs
6 items of 1800lbs, each 300lbs
Trucks are used for shipping to the items to customer's location. Each truck limits a weight of 5000lbs with 4 frames. Each frame can hold upto 5 items. Now, the customer is asking to achive a report where based on the above criteria, optimize a way to pack the items into frames effectively to reduce the trucks cost and much of a manual brain power to set the frames with items.
Hope this makes sense. Please let me know if any questions/suggestions.
5 Replies
Hey Anonymous
While I'm sure Power BI can do this it would be long and complicated. I would like to suggest maybe using Excel Solver instead. It is designed specifically for problems like this and would be incrdibly useful as a template for future calculations. If fact, I have a problem in grad school that was very similar to the one you listed.
Load Solver in Excel: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/load-the-solver-add-in-in-excel-612926fc-d53b-46b4-872c-e24772f078ca
Microsoft examples: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/define-and-solve-a-problem-by-using-solver-5d1a388f-079d-43ac-a7eb-f63e45925040
Ablebits tutorial: https://www.ablebits.com/office-addins-blog/2016/06/22/how-to-use-solver-in-excel-with-examples/
Excel-easy tutorial: https://www.excel-easy.com/data-analysis/solver.html
My dad and I both do a lot of work with various BI softwares and when it comes to optimization of individual instances Solver is still the better tool.
If this helps please kudo.
If this solves your problem please accept it as a solution.
I understand. Here is a thread where a super user posted something similar to what I said: https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Power-Query/Need-support-on-Converting-Excel-Solver-to-PowerBI/td-p/745811
In order to state working it up in Power BI I would need a sample of the data.